


i'd be more of a morning person if i got to wake up next to you

by penguin_parties



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguin_parties/pseuds/penguin_parties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Niall finds the answers to his uncertainties in Harry's eyes, and sometimes that scares him out of his wits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'd be more of a morning person if i got to wake up next to you

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Nothing' by Lewis Watson. xx

"Cake time!"

Niall laughs as he dodges a stampede of small children racing towards the kitchen in hopes of being given a slice of cake on a paper plate with green and blue striped rims. When he sees a toddler girl trip and fall, he helps her up with a chuckle, then follows the crowd of cavity-cravers to Anne.

"Light it up, Niall!" the woman says delightedly, gesturing to the homemade slab of baked sugar on the counter and shoving a lighter into Niall's hand.

"You got it!" Niall beams, examines his own handiwork, feels his teeth rotting before he's even got any cake in his mouth.

It's chocolate, with insides moist and tender and outsides crusted enough to hold the flavour within. Chocolate icing from a store-bought package swirls in concaving waves and seeps over the edges of the cake, smudging the cardboard it lays on. And with a tube of green frosting Niall has printed out 'Harry' on it, ignoring the shaky lines he squeezed out earlier as he stabs five or six candles into the surface. Right in the circles of the two 'r's' Niall pokes in a '1' candle and a '8' candle and he admires his masterpiece. Then with a flick of his thumb upon a lighter, he spits fire onto the tips of wax pillars and carries it into the dining room.

And there Harry sits, fidgeting and smiling like a toddler as he awaits the arrival of his birthday cake. The children of his relatives surround him with hungry eyes and Niall's stomach churns over the fact that Harry is such a family man. It's the only birthday party he's having this year and the youngest guest is seven months old and the oldest guest is nearing sixty eight. And Harry greets them all with a charming smile and hugs them and thanks them for coming and promises to chat more later and he lives up to those promises. Niall doesn't know why, but something about that makes his heart swell.  
A little three year old starts singing Happy Birthday and immediately everyone else joins in. Niall likes to think he sings the loudest; wants his Irish accent to stick out the most to Harry while the room serenades him. Again, he doesn't know why, but he thinks it may have something to do with the lights that reflect off of Harry's enlarged pupils and brighten the room more than the candles themselves.

When Niall sets the cake down in front of the beaming brunet, their eyes meet and a bell dings somewhere in the back of his mind. The light is painting Harry's face with a golden wand and shadow ink and somehow it intensifies every beloved curve and hill and valley laid across it. His retinas are pine needles, green and sharp and stabbing and his smile is suddenly small, like he and Niall are exchanging a secret. The blond is entranced and he stops singing and he stops moving and he stares for a moment. Then Harry's eyebrows twitch and he frowns for a split second and Niall is brought back to Earth and he looks away in a hurry, stepping into the crowd so Harry is everyone's complete focus.  
Harry's eyes follow him curiously and Niall looks to the ground, ashamed of these strange thoughts that have only just started to sprout from his brain. 

The song ends then and everyone's yelling for Harry to blow out the flames and Niall looks up as he does. Every candle but one goes out, leaving in their destruction twisting ribbons of white smoke, delicately dancing up towards the ceiling and eventually fading and blending into the colours around them. Harry pulls back the curtains and displays a set of dimples and his pearly whites and laughs at the single light, wavering as if indecisive about a dilemma it's been stuck in.

"Make a wish!" someone cries from the crowd and everyone jeers in approval.

Harry's smile shies away just slightly then and Niall notices. But then he's puffing out his cheeks and releasing a short huff of air and the flame vanishes. The room stills for a moment as if pondering where the light disappeared to, before everyone starts to applause and Harry is beaming again.

Did the candle absorb the heat back within the wax? Did the universe capture and save it to be released in a spark off the sun later on? Niall can't be sure, but Harry with his mysterious smirks and thoughtful eyes is the type of person he'd think would know. And maybe that's what scares the blond away from him.

****

"You're being a right dick, Niall."

Zayn is glaring at him, his gaze piercing as it contrasts with a slender jawline. Niall keeps his eyes on the derby match on the television, but he's not ignoring the tanned lad in the doorway. It's just that it's been nearly a month and he's heard this speech twice from Louis and Liam already, with Louis being the most upset. Additionally, Maura has noticed the absence of Harry from their evergreen-scented home and brought it up to Niall only a few days prior. Anne even called and didn't ask to speak to Maura when Niall picked up, instead expressed her wonder as to when he was coming 'round again.

"Harry's been a bit lonely lately," she had said, and Niall had had to sit down and close his eyes because it _pained_  him to hear about Harry being anything but happy and beautiful.

"I'm sorry, I've been busy with football and school and such," Niall had responded, hoping the waver in his voice wasn't as noticeable to Anne as it was to him.

Anne had paused, hesitating perhaps. Like she knew Niall was lying and she was deciding whether or not to call him out on it. Whether or not to accuse him of hurting her son and fix whatever had been damaged between them.

"Alright," she had said finally, evidently deciding against unleashing her frustration. Harry _needed_ Niall, relied on his sunshine, caved to his touch, drank his words like the last pool of water in a field of sand. But she wasn't someone who got involved, so she wished Niall a good day (or week, or month, because who knows when they were to speak again if ever) and hung up. 

Talking to Harry the night of the party had been the hardest though, even if a real argument never occurred. Niall had known it would be their last conversation for awhile. And he gave no clue to Harry that he had planned it to be that way.

Huddled into a jacket as he stood on the balcony of the apartment building, watching cars blur together on the highway a good distance away, watching the lights diminish on the abandoned floors of tall buildings, watching Harry watch him.

"You alright, Nialler?" Harry had asked, and he had walked up beside him and started observing the continuance of the world around them as well.

"Funny question to ask." Niall had let a smirk slip past the bulky guards he'd only recently hired to protect his emotions from being revealed. "It's your birthday after all, shouldn't I be making sure _you're_ alright?"

Harry had shrugged and Niall had wished the black of the night wasn't bringing out the sparkle in Harry's eyes so eloquently, so irresistably.

"I'm always alright, really," Harry had said, curled back the _as long as I'm with you_ on his tongue for another time, a better time. He hadn't known then that the words he so longed to say were being so longed to hear.

"You're a lucky one, then." Niall had chuckled, but his eyes hadn't crinkled like they usually do, and before Harry could ask about it, Niall had slipped a fag from his pocket and glued it to the wet of his lips.

Harry's fingers had slid past Niall's, reaching into the pocket of the blond's jacket, where he knew his personal lighter would be. Niall had only stared while the brunet and brought a flame to life with a twitch of a finger and raised it to the end of the stick in Niall's mouth. He had held it there until cinders warmed and glowed red and Niall was dragging smoke into his lungs. Then Harry had tucked it back where he got it from. And Niall had known right then that he was gone for.  
After a few more minutes of light conversation, they both had returned to the party, but Harry went back thinking nothing of it, and Niall went back only to leave right away. And he didn't return to Harry's side for nearly a month.

"I'm sorry." Niall shrugs, replying to Zayn a good minute after the boy spoke.

"You're apologizing to _me_?" Zayn hisses, walks further into the room until he's standing right in front of this silly, stupid blond. The boy looks dead all over; his hair greasy and knotted, his eyes drooping and his light gone. While the image of this once jovial lad brings sympathy to Zayn, he carries on. "I think we both know who deserves an apology right now. Or at least an explanation."

"It would only make things worse, trust me," Niall drones.

"Look at yourself, mate! What have you done?" Zayn rages, his hands gesturing about dramatically.

"Apparently, I fell for Harry," Niall responds, as if it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"What."

"Yeah."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

****

It's a day later when something dawns on Niall. When he realizes how stupid he's being. And he's not giving Louis the full credit with his rant about how he still has a chance to steal Harry's heart. But he _does_ rack up the courage to go see Harry again thanks to some encouraging words from Louis' mouth, albeit the profanities that litter his sentences. And that's how he finds himself knocking on an oak wood door and praying his heart doesn't beat out of his chest or fall out his ass or something.

"Niall?" Harry gapes, eyes wide and wandering from the halo that sits upon Niall's head to his fumbling feet, nervously pacing about.

"Uh, hi," Niall says sheepishly, waits for Harry to yell or slam the door in his face or something. He does deserve a lecture, after all.

"Hey," Harry replies and he's all smiles and shock and Niall thinks he's lucky that he's at least fallen for a guy who is good and kind never sees the wrong in anyone.

Then he sees the small teddy bear cradled in Harry's arm like a baby, its body brown and soft and cuddly and its face blank as it stares Niall down with black bead eyes.

"I see you found your birthday present." Niall chuckles, feebly pointing towards the plush animal. He remembers going to Harry's room and setting it upon the brunet's pillow, a turqoise ribbon tied around its middle, before escaping the party without anyone noticing. Niall wonders if Harry ever noticed that he had disappeared.

Harry follows his gaze and grins, holding it triumphantly.

"Yeah! I named him Murray Horan-Styles!" he says.

"Of course." Niall laughs and then pauses. "Horan-Styles?"

"Well, yeah," Harry says as if it's that simple. "You bought it and gave it to me so it's technically both of ours. We're practically parents!"

A flush raids Niall's cheeks, charming his natural blush a darker red and he grins a little, not knowing what to say next.

"Want to come in?" Harry asks politely, opening the door impossibly more.

Niall nods and follows Harry into the house, inhaling the 'fresh' smell Anne has always been able to capture. It's as if there are no walls to block the outdoor air from intermingling with the indoor air, it's as if they are one in the same. It feels like he's breathing in a gentle ocean breeze after it's corroded the surface of the salty sea.

As if Niall's not even there, Harry goes into the kitchen and returns with a watering can instead of Murray. He heads over to the balcony where Niall had seen him last, and tips the spout of the metal can over a flower pot of forget-me-nots sitting in the corner that Niall hadn't seen the night of the party.

After this, he heads back to the kitchen, in a nonchalant manner moves around the dining table where Niall had seen too many bright lights in the boy's green eyes.

"Want a drink or anything?" he calls and Niall responds with a no.

"Actually, I came here to talk to you about something," he says then, deciding to get this all over and done with as quickly as possible.

Harry doesn't reply right away, comes back towards the main room of the house with Murry back securely in his arms, and heads over to the couch near the stairs.

"Is this about why you've refused to speak to me for the last month?" Harry asks, a deep frown etched into his face.  
Weighing guilt drops itself upon Niall's shoulders.

"Erm," he mumbles, "I suppose so."

"You know, I don't recall ever saying something to offend you," Harry mutters, his eyes never straying from the neutral face of Murray.

"Ah, you didn't," Niall replies, wringing his hands.

"And you never said something to indicate that you were upset with me," the brunet continues.

"No.."

"So were you just being an asshole for the fun of it, or?"

Niall sighs, his hands reaching up to run through his hair.

"Look, I'm sorry-"

"We've been best friends since we were, what, four? You're kind of one of the most constant things in my life. And then you just fucking left? How did you think I'd feel about that?"

Harry's eyes ripple with anger when he looks up and Niall almost steps back in fear.

"I didn't...I didn't think, I guess." the blond mumbles and his voice shakes like a frightened chihuahua. 

"Obviously." Harry scoffs.

They exist in silence for a moment or two, Niall contemplating his next move and Harry petting at Murray's fur. 

"I think I'm in love with you," Niall says before he can convince himself not to.

Harry's hand freezes and he blinks, taking in the information.

"Are you joking, right now?" and Niall didn't know what to expect but Harry leaping up from the couch and stomping towards him looking about ready to punch him out was not it.

"No, I-I'm sorry, it's not something that I could...I don't know, control?" Niall rushes out, cemented to the floor.

"So you ran away?" Harry's tone softens and he stops in his steps only a foot away from the blond.

Niall shrugs and he can't tell if the burning behind his eyes is fear or hurt or something even more intense than a simple one-worded emotion.

"Fuck, I love you too, idiot."

Harry is laughing before Niall can process it, and then Niall is kissing Harry before he can process it, and suddenly everything is falling together.

"So you figured it out at my party is what you're telling me?" Harry asks later when they've retired to a snuggle on the couch.

"And it freaked me out, so I left," Niall explains further, tightening his hold around the boy in his arms.

"I guess I forgive you," Harry says softly, sinking into the blond. "It wasn't like I was going anywhere without you, after all."

And maybe Niall can't think of a better moment in his life and maybe he never leaves Harry's side for a long time after it, and maybe their fate holds stories of friendship turned marriage, Niall can't be certain. But Harry with his mysterious smirks and thoughtful eyes is the type of person he'd think would know. And maybe that's what keeps the blond around, keeps him from ever letting go.


End file.
